Obama Assails Republicans on Campaign Finance

President Barack Obama sought political advantage from the expected defeat of a campaign finance measure that he has championed by pre-emptively attacking its Republican opponents for "nothing less than a vote to allow corporate and special-interest takeovers of our elections."

His statement to reporters at the White House was added to his daily schedule after it became clear that the Senate would vote today on whether to take up a bill that would require corporations, unions and other special interests to disclose the donors that bankroll their political advertisements. The legislation would also ban campaign spending by foreign-controlled corporations. The House has passed the measure, which Democrats initiated after the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 to allow unlimited independent expenditures by corporations in elections, saying the federal limits violated First Amendment rights. But in the Senate, with a solid wall of Republican opposition, the measure is expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster. That would probably kill the initiative for this election year, handing President Obama a big loss in a fight against not only Congressional Republicans but also the dominant conservative faction on the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.